The present invention relates generally to the field of software and in particular to a method of displaying data in table columns outside the viewable area of a window.
In a broad variety of software applications, a well known and commonly used structure for displaying data is a two-dimensional table that organizes the data in a series of horizontal rows and vertical columns. For example, tables are often used to display information to user on a computer display device, such as a monitor or screen, either utilizing the full-screen display or in a Graphic User Interface (GUI) window. It is often the case in such displays that the size of the table, i.e., the number of rows and/or columns containing information to be displayed, exceeds the available display space at the selected zoom level and font size. In this case, the software application typically allows the user to scroll the visible, or displayed, portion of the table over a virtual model of the full table, whose extent exceeds the limits of the display.
A number of prior art methods exist to facilitate scrolling, or moving the displayed view of the table over the full extent of the table. For example, GUI windows typically provide vertical and horizontal scroll bars, providing an intuitive graphic means for scrolling the displayed view. Applications that utilize a full-screen display may include commands to scroll the display in vertical and/or horizontal directions, and may automatically scroll the display when the cursor reaches the edge of the displayed view. As another example, some applications may provide a graphic representation of the full extent of a virtual table, indicating the relative size and current position of the displayed portion of the table by a small rectangle within this extent.
The prior art methods of scrolling the displayed portion of a table across the full extent of the table present significant drawbacks. For example, a user may desire to view information within the same row that is located in columns further apart than the horizontal extent of the displayed portion of the table. Consequently, the user must continuously scroll in a horizontal direction to retrieve the desired information. This is cumbersome and inefficient, as it may cause the user to become disoriented and lose track of the relevant information.